大象传媒

Migrating pronghorn push further out of the forests of Yellowstone than any other of its inhabitants, through farmland and down into the wide prairies at the foot of the rocky mountains themselves. Their search for winter grazing takes them over a hundred miles to the south of Yellowstone - the longest migration of any American mammal. They have made this journey every year since the last ice age. But nowadays they have a problem. Their traditional winter refuges lie right above some of the richest natural gas deposits in America. The wells are no direct threat to pronghorn. But pronghorn are timid. At the slightest noise they run and when they run they run at 60 miles per hour. They evolved to avoid cheetahs, not juggernauts. Trucks, fences, and the disturbance from the wells have put pronghorn at risk as they cross the roads busy with industrial traffic. There are 1.2 million acres here, but 75% of it has now been earmarked for gas and oil.